A number of systems have been proposed for electronic processing of prints. These include Kodak's Creat-a-Print, where the customer goes to a photo store or mini lab location, inserts his negatives and zooms and crops or enlarges the image prior to printing. Other systems, like Kodak's Image Magic, provide for a combination of a stored background image with that of a "live" image of the customer, for prints which have been cropped and composed at a theme park. In addition, Photo CD.TM. optical disc services provides a method for putting selected images at full 35 mm film resolution on a Photo CD.TM. optical disc.
Often, however, a consumer faces a problem in that he has received a number of prints from a photo dealer or in the mail from a photo finisher and he wishes to send additional copies of these prints to other friends or relatives, or receive additional copies for himself, or to receive other services related to the selected images, such as picture frames for the prints, a Photo CD.TM. optical disc bearing the selected image(s), correspondence related to the selected image(s), or cropped enlargements.
In traditional photo processing environments, there has always been the difficulty of determining which photographic negative contains the image of choice. The customer often has difficulty determining which photographic negative contains the image of choice. Also, the customer often has difficulty interpreting the negative as it would appear printed. The customer must identify the images of interest on the negative by identifying each negative to the prints he wants. He must then return the negative to the mini lab, photo store, or photo finisher, either in person or by mail and then must specify the size and number of each print, and any other image related services. He must then wait for the new prints to be made and then obtain these prints from the drug store, mini lab, or photo finisher.
There are a number of problems with this approach. For instance, the sensitive film negative must be handled multiple times by the customer, adding a potential for scratching, fingerprinting, and otherwise damaging the film. Also, the sleeve must be written on to convey the ordering information. This works well if the customer does not insert the negatives into the sleeve before writing on it. Otherwise, there is a potential for damaging the film by writing on the sleeve while the film is within. There is also a potential for improper recording of data. Furthermore, the small negative image is not easily identifiable by the customer, particularly when there are several similar images. Another problem is that the images on the film do not always line up well with the preflashed numbers on the edge of the film. For example, the customer is often confused as to whether an image is "number 9", number "9A", or number "10". This confusion can result in selection of the wrong images for reprint. Options such as zoom and crop are very difficult for the customer to specify and as a result are ordered infrequently. When a customer does order reprints, the negatives may be stored haphazardly and apart from the original prints, making the negatives difficult to retrieve at a later date for ordering reprints. Finally, this somewhat arduous process of obtaining additional prints provides little impetus for ordering reprints and other image related services. The inconvenience of ordering is a barrier to ordering reprints and other image related services.
It is seen then that it would be desirable to have an improved system and method for facilitating ordering and re-ordering of prints and other image related services from negatives. Additionally, services such as picture frames for the prints, a Photo CD.TM. optical disc bearing the selected image(s), correspondence related to the selected image(s), or cropped enlargements would be ordered more often if the ordering process was facilitated and the ordered prints and services could be delivered directly to a designated recipient.